Here's how it'll add to the original franchise's ever-growing, ever-convoluted family.

By
Sean O'Neal

Jan 24, 2019

Hiram Garcia/Universal Pictures

Though it all began with a movie about the relatively provincial thrills of illegal street racing, The Fast And The Furious franchise, like its stars’ pectorals, only continues to expand. More than just fast cars driven by furious dudes, the series has become a rich tapestry into which every conceivable action-movie tableau can be woven: train heists and plane crashes, daring prison escapes and international espionage. It’s also a dizzyingly complex soap opera, filled with jumbled timelines, surprise twists, shifting loyalties, and even amnesia subplots, like an adrenalized General Hospital. It’s grown so massive, in fact, that one meager film series can no longer contain it: This July will see the debut of Hobbs And Shaw, the first spinoff under the newly hung Fast & Furious Presents shingle. Here’s what we know about it so far.

It’s a showcase for two of the series’ biggest, baldest characters.

Wait, let’s narrow that down: Hobbs & Shaw is a duet between Dwayne Johnson’s Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s British military hero-turned-black-ops agent Deckard Shaw. Their chemistry was one of the clear highlights of 2017’s The Fate Of The Furious, so pairing these two uneasy allies off on their own buddy-cop adventure seems like an obvious choice, giving them ample room to bicker and bond their way toward a grudging mutual respect—or not. As Johnson captioned the first promo still on his Instagram, “We either gonna get along or we gonna get it on. Fuck getting along.” (Note: This tagline probably isn’t official.)

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It one-ups every other Fast & Furious film by a factor of Idris Elba.

The campaign to make Idris Elba the next James Bond may have fallen short, but Hobbs & Shaw finds him joining the franchise that’s inherited its legacy of globetrotting, casual-cool spectacle. Elba will play the movie’s heavy, Brixton—”the baddest villain the franchise has ever seen,” Johnson enthused to Entertainment Weekly, even more diabolical than those played by Charlize Theron and (before he was redeemed) Statham himself. Johnson later called Elba‘s character “an icon” in the making, praising not only his next-level performance but his as-yet-untapped martial arts prowess at “kickin’ the shit out of me.”

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It adds to Fast & Furious’ ever-growing, ever-convoluted family.

Those traditional end-of-movie barbecues will need another place setting for Vanessa Kirby’s Hattie Shaw, sister to both Statham’s character and Luke Evans’ Owen Shaw, the chief antagonist of Fast & Furious 6. Like her brothers, Hattie has a military background, but she stayed legit: She’s an MI6 agent who mixes it up with Hobbs, much to Deckard’s chagrin. While she’s arguably best known for The Crown, Kirby comes to the Fast & Furious world hot off of Mission: Impossible–Fallout, where she proved unflappably cool amid so much international intrigue—although a set image shared by Johnson suggests that this time, she’ll be a bit more in the thick of the action.

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Other new additions include Baby Driver’s Eiza Gonzalez as the mysteriously named “M” and newcomer Eliana Su’a as Hobbs’ daughter, plus Eddie Marsan and Ellie Nicole—although it’s not clear yet who they’ll be playing (or who they might be related to).

It’s directed by one of the most in-demand names in modern action.

Although he has just a few films to his credit, stuntman-turned-director David Leitch has already amassed a considerable reputation on the backs of Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, plus his uncredited turn on John Wick. Leitch’s approach—a smart array of heavily stylized pulp and stunning setpieces, all of it cut straight to the bone—seems like a good fit for Hobbs & Shaw’s lean dynamic, which is reportedly more “grounded” and character-driven than previous films.

It’ll be funny, too!

Leitch’s films also have a knowing sense of humor that should also lend itself to a Fast & Furious movie driven by banter, rather than a dude in a tank top. “It’s definitely become much funnier than we intended for it to be, I think,” Statham told EW. “It’s just two guys screwing around, making the most of it, and we’re getting some good stuff.” Johnson agreed, saying this one would really “lean into the comedy” of the mismatched duo getting the job done while constantly getting on each other’s nerves.

The “candyass” count is reset to zero.

The Fate Of The Furious arrived amid rumors of a feud between Johnson and co-star Vin Diesel, a fight that erupted publicly after Johnson complained on Instagram of an unnamed “chicken shit” and “candyass” with whom he’d scrapped on set. After said candyass was revealed to be Diesel’s, their growing rift threatened to consume the entire film—and maybe even the future of the franchise. Although they’ve since cooled, offering measured statements about a “fundamental difference in philosophies,” Johnson has hedged on working with Diesel again, hesitating to confirm whether he’ll even return for Fast & Furious 9. Meanwhile, their co-star Tyrese Gibson has blasted both the spinoff and Johnson for “making the Fast & Furious franchise all about YOU.” So although Leitch has hinted that there may be a crossover cameo or two from the main series, it’s safe to say that Diesel and Gibson won’t be among them.

Ditto the carbs.

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Johnson, one of our great celebrity over-sharers, has been posting videos of the intense regimen he’s undertaken for the film, with Johnson seemingly determined to eradicate that final 0.0001% of body fat for your moviegoing enjoyment. “The exact science of this diet and training is tough on the ol’ system to maintain for four months of filming, but film lasts forever and we get one shot to try and make something iconic for the fans,” Johnson captioned a photo of one of his dreary pre-packaged meals, his fifth of the day. So if nothing else, maybe you owe it to Dwayne Johnson to see this movie for robbing himself of carbs and pushing himself to heretofore-undiscovered levels of jacked.

You can expect a lot more of these.

Like a musclebound Laverne & Shirley, Hobbs & Shaw seems poised to be the first of many satellites from the Fast & Furious mothership. Diesel has teased an “all-female” version that Universal is supposedly interested in, along with a second spinoff concept that he won’t elaborate on yet—both of these in addition to the still-flourishing main series, which is currently set to wrap with its ninth and tenth films in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Given that the whole franchise has earned more than $5 billion to date, and Hobbs & Shaw only promises to add to those considerable coffers, it’s safe to say we could be seeing Fast & Furious movies—possibly centered on characters we haven’t even met yet—for many years to come. Maybe they’ll even get back to street racing, eventually.

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